Archive for the ‘Development’ Category

OpenMeta Progress

Friday, March 13th, 2009

There’s been quite a bit of debate in Ironic Software’s forums about OpenMeta.  I was initially wary of some of the implementation details, but after discussing it with Tom Andersen, who wrote the OpenMeta code, I’m confident it will serve us all well.  I’ve posted a summary of my thoughts on their forums at http://ironicsoftware.com/community/comments.php?DiscussionID=755/.

Now that I’m comfortable with OpenMeta’s direction, I’ve finished a pre-release build of Default Folder X that provides OpenMeta tagging support.  You can download it here:

http://www.stclairsoft.com/download/DefaultFolderX-4.2d8.dmg

Please install it and have a look.  I’d appreciate hearing your thoughts and reports of any bugs you find.  The best way to submit your comments is via email to DefaultFolder@stclairsoft.com.

Thanks!

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DFX 4.1.2d3: Better rebound and menus with files in them

Monday, February 2nd, 2009

Thanks to Rick Meikle’s careful detailing of exactly what has been wrong with Default Folder X’s “rebound” feature, I’ve now rewritten the rebound code to work much better.  It’s in the latest development build of DFX, which is available here:

http://www.stclairsoft.com/download/DefaultFolderX-4.1.2d3.dmg

In addition, I’ve added a hidden option to display files as well as folders in Default Folder X’s hierarchical menus.  When you select a file, the file dialog is taken to its parent folder and the file is selected if the current application can open it.  To get to the switch to turn this on, go to Default Folder X in System Preferences and click on the “Settings…” button while holding down the Option key.  Turn on the bottom checkbox in the window that comes up – it’s labeled “AlwaysShowFilesInMenus”.

As always, your comments, feedback, and bug reports are crucial to making better software, so speak up!

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Mathomatic for iPhone

Friday, January 23rd, 2009


Yes, I’ve been a negligent father – I didn’t blog about Ben’s release of Mathomatic for iPhone.  It’s a very cool port of Mathomatic, an open source symbolic algebra engine that’s been around on the desktop for quite a while.  Ben’s integrated it into a very slick package, and the equation formatting and display is really top notch.

Yeah, it’s pretty geeky, but I have to say it’s also VERY cool!  Whether you’re doing homework, simplifying some equations for use in your own development work, or just want to be amazed at what you can do on an iPhone these days, it’s worth playing with – check it out!

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OpenMeta coming soon to Default Folder X

Friday, January 23rd, 2009

I’m very excited about Ironic Software’s establishment of OpenMeta, a new standard for storage of tag metadata on OS X.  Storing spotlight keywords in the Finder/Spotlight comments of files has always been problematic, but up until now, it was the best solution available if you wanted general-purpose access to the tags via Spotlight.

Now OpenMeta uses the metadata capabilities in HFS+ to uniformly store tag information – and provides open source code to make it easy for developers get on board.  Ironic’s Deep application uses it, and Gravity Applications’ new Tags app is doing it too – you can assign tags to files, email messages, photos – it’s very slick and oh-so-much-better on a technical level – we just have to get more people to adopt it!  As always, one of the missing pieces is being able to tag documents as you’re saving them – Default Folder X already supports this using the traditional Spotlight comments, so it makes all the sense in the world for DFX to support OpenMeta.

So in answer to all the emails I’ve been getting – YES, Default Folder X will adopt the OpenMeta standard (while still supporting Spotlight comments too, for those of you that aren’t ready to switch).

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iPhone app pricing

Sunday, November 16th, 2008

Andy Finnell makes a lot of sense in How to Price Your iPhone App out of Existence.
Since the opening of the app store I’ve felt that the $0.99 (or thereabouts) pricing model isn’t sustainable – Andy lays that out in thorough detail.

He does make one point I’d argue with, however.  His assertion that developers should charge a price that’s high enough to keep them in business is backwards, in my opinion.  Developers should charge a price commensurate with the value of their software to users.  If I write an app that only appeals to 5 people and I need $50,000 a year to live, it’d be ridiculous to ask those 5 people to pay $10,000 / copy. If it’s worth $50 to them based on what it can do, then that’s what it’s worth.  If that’s not enough to pay the bills, then I shouldn’t be writing that application, or should look at changing something (the feature set, advertising, or marketing) to make it more viable.  Of course, we often don’t know the correct formula at the outset, but in the case of iPhone apps, it seems clear that charging $0.99 is not going to enable you to really support or update it long-term (where “long-term” is more than a few months).

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